can we use proper english?
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Originally posted by duanyuqiao:
wa song le. wa ai kong si mi jiu kong si mi, li si ai an zhua?
Aiyah, ji kor si jiak kan tang eh, tia tio kio nang "spik Engrish' mah.
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Originally posted by Fantagf:
U hock chiah or hokkien?
me?,...hokkien mee. -
Originally posted by Gedanken:
Aiyah, ji kor si jiak kan tang eh, tia tio kio nang "spik Engrish' mah.
change channel liao, lky asks people speak mandarin at home -
Originally posted by Ah Chia:
You are my brother.
We dialects must oppose the banana and his filth.
lol. -
Originally posted by Ah Chia:
You are my brother.
We dialects must oppose the banana and his filth.
Then why are u still using English? Use Mandarin and Hokkien -
Originally posted by Kutter:
1. Loyalty to Country2. Leadership
3. Discipline
4. Professionalism
5. Fighting Spirits
6. Ethics
7. Care for Soldiers
8. Do Anything but don't get caught
rule 8 apply while you are driving also.. like on the grass patch?
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Originally posted by Ah Chia:
I consider singlish rubbish.
I view it as an obstacle to distinction in English instead.
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Originally posted by mh2:
rule 8 apply while you are driving also.. like on the grass patch?
In fact, it applies everywhere you go.
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Please, control your sentence structure and tenses!
:lol:
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interesting that we have so many threads on languages in sgforum, here in chit-chat, speakers corner, here and there in other subforums etc. etc.
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Originally posted by Bangulzai:
interesting that we have so many threads on languages in sgforum, here in chit-chat, speakers corner, here and there in other subforums etc. etc.
When starting a thread on Swahili?
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not my power yet. i can start on thread on Tamil or Hindi when i think it's fun
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Learn Chinese!
Er....becos china is earning big $
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Isit the case?
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interesting that we have so many threads on languages in sgforum, here in chit-chat, speakers corner, here and there in other subforums etc. etc.
because the mother fucker Lee Kuan Yew MESSED up all the languages in Singapore with his rubbish policies.
Last time, BEFORE Lee Kuan Yew, the languages in Singapore were not messed up.
But AFTER Lee Kuan Yew, the languages became messed up, appeared singlish etc.
All these is due to LEE KUAN YEW's filthy policies and his dirty agendas.
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Originally posted by Ah Chia:
because the mother fucker Lee Kuan Yew MESSED up all the languages in Singapore with his rubbish policies.
Last time, BEFORE Lee Kuan Yew, the languages in Singapore were not messed up.
But AFTER Lee Kuan Yew, the languages became messed up, appeared singlish etc.
All these is due to LEE KUAN YEW's filthy policies and his dirty agendas.
I catch no ball.
Only Mandarin maybe muck up the dialects. But then if no Mandarin, dialects is also on the decline, with the succeeding generation speaking English and a poor command of two dialects, unually of both the different ethnic parents plus a smattering of Malay. Its the parents duty to impart dialects to their children, not the nation. This goes the same for any other race. Russian or Eskimo, or Zulu, if the children can't speak the language don't blame the government, Speak Mandarin Campaign.
Mandarin only muck up things for the Chinese, not the Malays and Indians and Others. Therefore not whole of Singapore got muck uped.
You anyhow gasak LKY one. As Poh Ah Pak you only want LKY to go. Now as Ah Chia you tarok him at every turn.
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Only Mandarin maybe muck up the dialects. But then if no Mandarin, dialects is also on the decline, with the succeeding generation speaking English and a poor command of two dialects, unually of both the different ethnic parents plus a smattering of Malay. Its the parents duty to impart dialects to their children, not the nation. This goes the same for any other race. Russian or Eskimo, or Zulu, if the children can't speak the language don't blame the government, Speak Mandarin Campaign.
Mandarin only muck up things for the Chinese, not the Malays and Indians and Others. Therefore not whole of Singapore got muck uped.
I think I explain to you tomorrow.
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Originally posted by Ah Chia:
because the mother fucker Lee Kuan Yew MESSED up all the languages in Singapore with his rubbish policies.
Last time, BEFORE Lee Kuan Yew, the languages in Singapore were not messed up.
But AFTER Lee Kuan Yew, the languages became messed up, appeared singlish etc.
All these is due to LEE KUAN YEW's filthy policies and his dirty agendas.
it's better to post some factual stuffs for people to read and let them analyse from different angles. most people on these forums are poorly read on certain topics, so have to spoon-feed them.
From LEE KUAN YEW'S Language Learning Experience "Keeping my Mandarin Alive"
[ Preface ]
These words from Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew underscore the objective of this publication - to provide an insight into his journey of acquiring the Chinese language so that others may draw lessons from his experience and strategies.
Many of us are familiar with the political ideology and economic policy of MM Lee. However, few of us know his language learning tactics, including using the latest digital technologies. Many of us know that he has been taking Mandarin lessons for many years, but only a few know how committed and diligent he is in his Mandarin lessons.
For the first time, MM Lee shares the difficulties he faces as an adult student of the Chinese language and how he overcame the difficulties (he started learning Mandarin only at the age of 32 and Hokkien at age 38). In this book, he candidly recounts how he learnt Mandarin during the last 50 years and how he keeps up with it. He also tells when and why he decided to learn the language, where he got his learning materials, from whom he learnt his Mandarin and what spurred him on this learning journey for more than half a century.
This is not a book of MM Lee's language theory or his language policy. Instead, it is a detailed description of his Chinese language learning journey, one that is fraught with difficulties and obstacles. During this 50-year journey, he has held steadfast to his belief that as a Chinese he must be able to speak and understand the Chinese language. To him, keeping his Chinese language alive is not solely for economic reasons but also to give him a sense of identity and pride in the culture and civilisation of our Chinese ancestors. His advice to both the younger generation and their parents is loud and clear: learn the language when you are young. Keep it alive for the rest of your life.
MM Lee advises that to be an effective and efficient language student, we must set a realistic learning goal and understand our own learning style. It is alos important for us to understand the usage of the target language, analyse and be conscious of the strengths and weakness of our language learning ability.
In this book, MM Lee illustrates how he sets his language goal after analysing his language ability and how he monitors the progress of his learning systematically. His main aim now is to be able to convert his large repertoire of passive Mandarin vocabulary into active and ready-to-use words.
MM Lee pays special attention to the standard pronunciation of Mandarin. He feels that if we have to learn Mandarin, we should learn to speak standard Mandarin. This is his own language expectation and requirement. Hence, he has always insisted that those who speak good Mandarin be his Mandarin teachers so that they can serve as his language model. To him, a good language teacher who is able to answer queries and clear doubts is essential.
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[ Interview ] with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew by Ho Sheo Be
Q: Minister Mentor, we noticed that you have collected a lot of notes on your Chinese lessons over the years, is this a special effort and why?
They were left in case at some time or other I wanted to look up something which I had learnt; they are there but not easily retrievable. They became too voluminous and there was no computer to hold them as digital files which were easily retrievable. But they should be useful because they show in writing the amount of materials that I had gone through.
Q: What you have laid out on the table today is certainly just a small part of the materials you have gone through. I believe you started to learn Chinese as early as during the Japanese occupation, perhaps you would like to share with us the experience?
The Early Years
I started to learn Chinese in 1942, probably in March or April. The Japanese captured Singapore in February and suddenly the notices were in Japanese, in kanji. I didn't want to learn Japanese becuase I disliked them; they were very brutal. So I decided to learn Chinese to understand what they were writing. I bought several "Chinese taught through English" books from bookshops in Bras Basah Road. I found two sets. One was Mandarin Made Easy by Chiang Ker Chiu, then intermediate Mandarin and advanced Mandarin - teaching Mandarin through English. Next, there was a set of four books from the Prinsep Street Chinese School, teaching Chinese using English. After each lesson, there was a glossary explaining the Chinese characters in English. I spent about six to eight months going through them all. Nothing else to do, just sat down at home to self study. I mastered about 2000 characters, but in a superficial way. I only knew the meaning of the characters and that a combination of the characters meant something else. I didn't learn to pronounce the words, because I had no teacher.
Looking back now, I think I made a mistake. If I had looked for a teacher, I would have found one. I had a neighbour living opposite me who was the nephew of a civil servant called Lee Siow Mong. He came over to teach me. He was a Chaozhou ren [潮州人, Teochew] (chuckles). His Mandarin had Chaozhou de qiang diao [潮州的腔调, a Teochew accent]. I was very particular that if I had to learn, I wanted to learn the correct pronunciation and not a dialect pronunciation, so I erased this teaching. Then I became a clerk at a Japanese textile firm. I had to copy Japanese words - katakana, hiragana and kanji. So my writing in kanji was consolidated. I also learnt touch typing with a Pitman's book. But I did not keep up my Chinese; I just read kanji which was necessary to understand Japanese.
I came back (from England) to Singapore in 1950. By 1951/52, I started to learn Mandarin. I learnt it with my friend Hon Sui Sen. We got a man who was supposed to have a Beijing accent. We made some progress but it was not a serious effort, because the lessons were conducted in the evenings - two or three times a week. We tape-recorded him on a very small Grundig tape recorder with a spool tape. It was a dictaphone. The reproduction was very poor. The teacher got suspicious because once (the lesson were) recorded, he thought we would not need him (chuckles). He wasn't keen on recording. He wasn't very successful, so we dropped him.
That lasted for probably about eight or nine months. That gave me a slight basis and revived my memory of the kanji. Then in 1955, I contested elections in Tanjong Pagar. There were two opponents, one was a Raffles College boy who I know, the other was Lam Tian. He was from Chinese High School, a Hakka like me. He challenged me to a debate in Mandarin in Tanjong Pagar which included at that time Niu Che Shui [牛车水, Chinatown]. Of course it could have been a calamity for me and so I evaded him. It was my first shock and I had to make a speech at a rally in Banda Street. About 30,000 to 40,000 people crammed into the square where today the Kreta Ayer Theatre is. I got hold of a journalist called Jek Yuen Thong to assist me. He was a Sin Pao journalist. I said, "Jek, write me a short speech in Mandarin." And he did one page. I practised very hard for a few days (laughs). He used one phrase: that we were honest people, that we were an honest party, and the others were not trustworthy - that they were gua yang tou mai gou rou [挂羊头�狗肉, to palm off something inferior to what it purported to be] - so I practised that speech.
Q: You knew what that meant?
Yes, of course. I knew what I was saying, I was worried I could not pronounce it properly. The crowd knew that I was learning, so they cheered me - it went well. Then I picked up Mandarin. The (party) branches grew very rapidly. As the secretary-general of the party, I had to meet many Chinese-educated, young workers. Many of them were left-wingers who spoke either dialect or Mandarin. So I decided to concentrate on Mandarin because there are so many dialects. Every day at lunchtime in my office at Malacca Street, my branch activist, who I think was a pro-communist left-winger, would come to teach me for about one hour. As I progressed, he brought me a little book which taught me the basic words and phrases that the communists used, Marxist philosophy. It was called Ren Sheng Guan [《人生观》, Outlook on Life]. I don't know whether it is still available, it was my first primer on communist politics.
By 1955/59, I could make speeches in Mandarin without difficulty, but of course I was always looking for new words and phrases, because my English vocabulary was much bigger than my Chinese.
"Gin Nah Mai Chio, Wah Bei Oh"
Then came another shock. In 1961, we had to fight the by-election in Hong Lim and that was a Hokkien-speaking area, China Street. Ong Eng Guan, Singapore's first and last mayor, was our party's treasurer and a Minister for National Development. He clashed with us, he wanted to be the boss, so he started denouncing us. He then resigned (his seat in Hong Lim) and fought the by-election. We knew that we needed a Hokkien speaker. The other Hokkien speaker we had was Lim Chin Siong, but Lim Chin Siong was not with us anymore. We did not trust him. My colleagues, especially Dr Goh (Keng Swee), said, "You learn Hokkien." (laughs) I just said, "Okay, I'll learn Hokkien." I had Mandarin, it was a great help. I learnt to change the pronunciation into Hokkien, except that many (Hokkien) words have no characters. It was a tremendous effort. At the first meeting, the children laughed at me. I said, "Gin nah mai chio, wah bei oh," [in Hokkien, it means "kids don't laugh, I want to learn"] and that I am learning and I have something serious to tell you.
The election went on for about three months, we dragged it out because I needed time to learn my Hokkien and to get my ideas across. By the end of the three months, I could make a simple speech in Hokkien because every day when I spoke, this Radio Singapore reporter - I think he was a reporter but later he became an editor - Sia Cheng Tit who was a great enthusiast, would listen to me while I spoke in English. He knew that I had wanted to say in Hokkien and was looking for the Mandarin and Hokkien words. He noted them down and would turn up the next day at lunch with the words and phrases all with the romanised pronunciation and with the tones (Hokkien has seven tones). He was educated in wen yan [文言, classical Chinese], so he is very fond of beautiful, eight-character aphorism. I learnt them by heart (laughs).
That was life and death. If I did not master that, I could not have won the referendum in 1962; I could not have gone throughout Singapore in 1963 to fang wen [访问, visit the people]; I could not have won the elections. So, every National Day rally I would speak in Hokkien because that was the language that got the biggest audience. To do a National Day Rally speech in Hokkien without a script, to express my political ideas for about 40 minutes, I had to master several new words and phrases. To make sure that I mastered them, I would make similar speeches at several community centres before that. Mr Sia would listen to me, correct me and get it exactly right, so that by the time I got on television, I would be almost word perfect. Because I switched to Hokkien, Mandarin became secondary. But we were teaching students in schools Mandarin, so they saw the Prime Minister speaking Hokkien and said, "Nothing wrong, we carry on in Hokkien." So, they were not mastering Mandarin. The Education Ministry brought this problem up to me. I decided to stop (using) Hokkien.
My last speech in Hokkien was made in 1979 and from then on, I spoke Mandarin. (I was telling the people) not to speak dialects at all but learn Mandarin. You cannot learn English and Mandarin and speak dialects at home at the same time - it's not possible. I know it's not possible because it takes up more brain space, more "megabytes" in the brain. Every word in Hokkien is pronounced differently from Mandarin, the sound is different. "Hai zi" [å©å�, children] becomes "gin nah"; "nü zi" [女å�, woman] becomes "cha bo" - it's complicated. I switched back to Mandarin.
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Q: Were you worried about the political cost of giving up Hokkien as many people were then still speaking dialects?
I had a responsibility not to mislead the young. As long as I was still speaking Hokkien at the National Day Rally, I was in fact saying it's okay to do so. If so, they [the people] would never give up Hokkien; they would never move to Mandarin. So the Speak Mandarin Campaign would fail and the learning of Mandarin in schools would never be successful. So, never mind the price, yi shen zuo ze [以身作则, setting a good example], it had to be done. Everyone has a limit; you have to decide what do you want to do within your limited capacity and how do you maximise it for your life?
Q: You have not seen any example of people who speak good dialects, English and Mandarin?
Very few, Seng Han Thong is one but he is an interpreter. He has a specially trained capability and an in-born skill. For the average person, to master two languages is already a problem. Let me put it simply this way and I am speaking from my own experience, watching my children, my friends and generally testing people who are bilingual and trilingual. If I only learn English and, say, I reach 100%, when I learn Malay, Mandarin and Hokkien, I cannot score 100% in each. The more I learn for the next language, the lower my score in my first language. I say to Singaporeans: You decide, if you want good Chinese, you must be prepared to let your English go down to 90, 80 odd percent. Then, you can reach 50, 60 or 70% in Chinese. Or, you can go to Chinese schools and do English as a second language, then your Chinese can go up to 80%, and your English will go down to 50 or 60%. Very few can do both at the same level; 100% for each, I'd say that's possible only for a few who are specially gifted. I have spoken to many interpreters on what they do to keep their two languages up, particularly those who interpret for me in China.
(Once), after a trip in Beijing, we went on a plane to different provinces. I asked them [the interpreters] how had they kept up with their English. They said they read, listened to tapes, and if they didn't interpret and didn't read, then they were unable to keep it up. So, to do that, you have to push many things out of your mind. I have learnt six languages: English, Malay, Latin (to pass my examinations in school so that I could study law), then I learnt Chinese, Japanese and Hokkien. If you can take the example of a computer: your hard disk is only one gigabyte, what you put in pushes out something else. As you grow older, your gigabyte reduces, because every year, after the age of 20, you lose 1 million neurons. So you've got to delete.
After I retired from Prime Ministership, I went to Japan. Whilst talking to the Japanese through an interpreter, I could understand snatches of what they said because at the end of the Japanese occupation in September 1945, I was able to be an interpreter for business purposes. During a trip to Japan, I decided to re-learn Japanese. The Ambassador bought me some books, I brought them home and started reading. After a while, I said, "No, I am a stupid man, I meet a Japanese once in a month or once in two months and he brings an interpreter, when I bring it [Japanese] back into my hard disk, I am pushing out something else." So I stopped.
We have to make our minds up, parents must understand this: we must make a living in Singapore, we have decided and, I think rightly, that English is our working language. Otherwise, Singapore would divide, clash, collide, collapse. Non-Chinese would not be able to survive. So, how do we keep Chinese alive? And it is very important that we keep Chinese, not just for economic reasons, but for reasons of identity, sense of self, and pride in our own culture and civilisation.
Q: The motivation behind your effort in learning Mandarin appears to have been primarily political. With a changing environment, particularly as more of the voters are now conversant in English, why have you persevered in the effort to learn Mandarin? What moves you on?
Because I have not forgotten my sense of loss. Whilst I was in England (after Liberation), I felt a deep sense of loss that I did not know Chinese. There was a club called the China Institute in Gordon Square financed by the Boxer Indemnity Fund which the British had extracted from the Chinese government. That club was open to all Chinese from anywhere in the world. As students, we were very poor. They gave me what they'd call high tea - meaning a semi-dinner - sandwiches, tea, and a few cakes. So, I could skip dinner and save money. I used to meet Chinese from all over the world. After a while, I could tell the difference between a Singapore or Malayan Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, China Chinese, Carribean Chinese, Mauritian Chinese - most were from the British empire. Those who were most de-culturalised were from the West Indies, because they were farthest away from China. They couldn't speak dialect, their connection with China had been lost.
When I used to go to hotels to register, they would say, "Oh, Chinese," so I thought it was a deep loss that I could not speak or understand Chinese.
That's why I sent my children to Chinese schools. I think from the age of three, my wife had a Chinese teacher to teach them at home. Then at the age of five, they were sent to Nanyang You Zhi Yuan [å�—洋幼稚å›] (now it's called You Er Yuan [幼儿å›]) [Nanyang Kindergarten], and then Nanyang Xiao Xue [å�—æ´‹å°�å¦, Nanyang Primary School]. For the eldest, he had Chinese education right up to gao zhong er [高ä¸äºŒ, second year of pre-university], for a total of 12 years. The other two had 10 years of Chinese education. At home I used to speak to them in Mandarin to practise my Mandarin and they learnt English from their mother and from books. But in the end, English became their master language, because they went on to English language universities and they use English every day (instead of) Mandarin. But they already have it [Chinese] deeply implanted in their brains so that it can be easily revived. In their case, it was like a sapling, with deep roots, but in my case, it was like an instant tree chopped off from the ground; not so stable, the roots not so deep.
If today I am unable to read the Chinese characters on the wall or the newspapers. I'd feel I am inadequate. I read three times faster in English than I read in Chinese. Sometimes the (Chinese) word is so small, I am not sure what the word is. In English, I can scan the whole sentence; in Chinese, if I miss one or two characters, I cannot be sure of the meaning. I will feel a sense of loss and having spent all this effort, I am determined not to lose it. It is as simple as that.
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Q: In learning Mandarin, what were some difficulties that you encountered and how did you overcome them?
Pronunciation was (learnt) very early on, once I captured the pronunciation and I knew the zhu yin fu hao [注音符�], I didn't worry about the pronunciation any more. I knew how not to follow my earlier teachers' or tutors' pronunciation because I knew their Mandarin was with dialect accents. I'll tell you one strange situation. When I was in China for the first time in 1976, they had a very good interpreter, she was very competent. Then we went to Guangzhou, (where) the Vice Chairman of the revolutionary committee was a Hainan ren [海�人, man who hailed from Hainan province in China]. She, the interpreter, couldn't understand his Mandarin, so I translated his Mandarin to her because I understood his Hainan qiang diao [腔调, accent]. The problem for China and the problem for us, is the wide variety of different dialects and accents; (there is a need) to move towards one norm, one standard. Singapore is small and I think we can succeed. China is enormous; I think even in two to three generations, in spite of satellite TV, Internet and so on, they will still be speaking with different accents. The population is huge, each province and town has a different slang and tone - Shanghai is different from Nanjing, Nanjing is different from Beijing and so on.
Language requires that we understand each other. Grammar must always be correct. As in English, you can speak with different accents, but if the grammar is correct, it can be understood. To do all that in Singapore, we have to stick to English and Mandarin. Don't go into dialects, it will ruin the bilingual policy we have. Supposing we had not pushed out dialects, and I had continued speaking Hokkien, today we would be worse off.
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Originally posted by mh2:
i know some time mandarin word and realted conversion word can explain a situation and idea more clearly....
but jus for those ppl that suck in mandarin. can we use all posting in english that have no chinese meaning behind?
I will try to....
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Don't go into dialects, it will ruin the bilingual policy we have. Supposing we had not pushed out dialects, and I had continued speaking Hokkien, today we would be worse off.
What sort of bullshit is that?
Taiwan uses mandarin and hokkien, economy better than Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
Hong Kong uses cantonese and english also better than Singapore.
Don't talk cock lah baba bastard.
You think I born yesterday to go and believe in your rubbish?
Your agenda is to kill off the hokkien because you fear their power against your banana clique.
Mother fucker, you worked with japanese during WWII, hide your peranakan identity, pretend to be chinese, kill off chinese schools now come and talk cock to me about hokkien.
We dialect chinese vote you to come and kill off our language?
Fuck you Lee Kuan Yew.
Fuck you Lee Kuan Yew.
Fuck you Lee Kuan Yew.
Fuck you Lee Kuan Yew.
Fuck you Lee Kuan Yew.
Fuck you Lee Kuan Yew.
Fuck you Lee Kuan Yew.
The japanese come and kill us during WWII but you go and work for them I still haven't settle with you, you dare come and talk rubbish with me about my dialect Lee Kuan Yew?
You got fucking balls go and front page in newspaper declare loudly you are peranakan worked for japanese during WWII then come and talk with me, you filth.
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I dun think Singapore is strong in any language, although EL is the main lang here.
Everything sounds broken.
We are good at hybridising languages though.
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it will ruin the bilingual policy we have.
Because of your mother fucking crap bilingual policy messed up all the languages in singapore today.
Appeared the singlish.
Then come and talk cock about dialect.
Your premise is already bullshit lah Lee Kuan Yew.
Moronic bastard.
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Everything sounds broken.
We are good at hybridising languages though.
THAT IS BECAUSE OF THE BULLSHIT bilingual policy by our dear baba bastard LEE KUAN YEW.
That is the root cause.
It is due to his filthy policy.
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From LEE KUAN YEW'S Language Learning Experience "Keeping my Mandarin Alive"
[ Preface ]
These words from Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew underscore the objective of this publication - to provide an insight into his journey of acquiring the Chinese language so that others may draw lessons from his experience and strategies.
Many of us are familiar with the political ideology and economic policy of MM Lee. However, few of us know his language learning tactics, including using the latest digital technologies. Many of us know that he has been taking Mandarin lessons for many years, but only a few know how committed and diligent he is in his Mandarin lessons.
For the first time, MM Lee shares the difficulties he faces as an adult student of the Chinese language and how he overcame the difficulties (he started learning Mandarin only at the age of 32 and Hokkien at age 38). In this book, he candidly recounts how he learnt Mandarin during the last 50 years and how he keeps up with it. He also tells when and why he decided to learn the language, where he got his learning materials, from whom he learnt his Mandarin and what spurred him on this learning journey for more than half a century.
This is not a book of MM Lee's language theory or his language policy. Instead, it is a detailed description of his Chinese language learning journey, one that is fraught with difficulties and obstacles. During this 50-year journey, he has held steadfast to his belief that as a Chinese he must be able to speak and understand the Chinese language. To him, keeping his Chinese language alive is not solely for economic reasons but also to give him a sense of identity and pride in the culture and civilisation of our Chinese ancestors. His advice to both the younger generation and their parents is loud and clear: learn the language when you are young. Keep it alive for the rest of your life.
MM Lee advises that to be an effective and efficient language student, we must set a realistic learning goal and understand our own learning style. It is alos important for us to understand the usage of the target language, analyse and be conscious of the strengths and weakness of our language learning ability.
In this book, MM Lee illustrates how he sets his language goal after analysing his language ability and how he monitors the progress of his learning systematically. His main aim now is to be able to convert his large repertoire of passive Mandarin vocabulary into active and ready-to-use words.
MM Lee pays special attention to the standard pronunciation of Mandarin. He feels that if we have to learn Mandarin, we should learn to speak standard Mandarin. This is his own language expectation and requirement. Hence, he has always insisted that those who speak good Mandarin be his Mandarin teachers so that they can serve as his language model. To him, a good language teacher who is able to answer queries and clear doubts is essential.
.....
.....
.....
[ Interview ] with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew by Ho Sheo Be
Q: Minister Mentor, we noticed that you have collected a lot of notes on your Chinese lessons over the years, is this a special effort and why?
They were left in case at some time or other I wanted to look up something which I had learnt; they are there but not easily retrievable. They became too voluminous and there was no computer to hold them as digital files which were easily retrievable. But they should be useful because they show in writing the amount of materials that I had gone through.
Q: What you have laid out on the table today is certainly just a small part of the materials you have gone through. I believe you started to learn Chinese as early as during the Japanese occupation, perhaps you would like to share with us the experience?
The Early Years
I started to learn Chinese in 1942, probably in March or April. The Japanese captured Singapore in February and suddenly the notices were in Japanese, in kanji. I didn't want to learn Japanese becuase I disliked them; they were very brutal. So I decided to learn Chinese to understand what they were writing. I bought several "Chinese taught through English" books from bookshops in Bras Basah Road. I found two sets. One was Mandarin Made Easy by Chiang Ker Chiu, then intermediate Mandarin and advanced Mandarin - teaching Mandarin through English. Next, there was a set of four books from the Prinsep Street Chinese School, teaching Chinese using English. After each lesson, there was a glossary explaining the Chinese characters in English. I spent about six to eight months going through them all. Nothing else to do, just sat down at home to self study. I mastered about 2000 characters, but in a superficial way. I only knew the meaning of the characters and that a combination of the characters meant something else. I didn't learn to pronounce the words, because I had no teacher.
Looking back now, I think I made a mistake. If I had looked for a teacher, I would have found one. I had a neighbour living opposite me who was the nephew of a civil servant called Lee Siow Mong. He came over to teach me. He was a Chaozhou ren [潮州人, Teochew] (chuckles). His Mandarin had Chaozhou de qiang diao [潮州的腔调, a Teochew accent]. I was very particular that if I had to learn, I wanted to learn the correct pronunciation and not a dialect pronunciation, so I erased this teaching. Then I became a clerk at a Japanese textile firm. I had to copy Japanese words - katakana, hiragana and kanji. So my writing in kanji was consolidated. I also learnt touch typing with a Pitman's book. But I did not keep up my Chinese; I just read kanji which was necessary to understand Japanese.
I came back (from England) to Singapore in 1950. By 1951/52, I started to learn Mandarin. I learnt it with my friend Hon Sui Sen. We got a man who was supposed to have a Beijing accent. We made some progress but it was not a serious effort, because the lessons were conducted in the evenings - two or three times a week. We tape-recorded him on a very small Grundig tape recorder with a spool tape. It was a dictaphone. The reproduction was very poor. The teacher got suspicious because once (the lesson were) recorded, he thought we would not need him (chuckles). He wasn't keen on recording. He wasn't very successful, so we dropped him.
That lasted for probably about eight or nine months. That gave me a slight basis and revived my memory of the kanji. Then in 1955, I contested elections in Tanjong Pagar. There were two opponents, one was a Raffles College boy who I know, the other was Lam Tian. He was from Chinese High School, a Hakka like me. He challenged me to a debate in Mandarin in Tanjong Pagar which included at that time Niu Che Shui [牛车水, Chinatown]. Of course it could have been a calamity for me and so I evaded him. It was my first shock and I had to make a speech at a rally in Banda Street. About 30,000 to 40,000 people crammed into the square where today the Kreta Ayer Theatre is. I got hold of a journalist called Jek Yuen Thong to assist me. He was a Sin Pao journalist. I said, "Jek, write me a short speech in Mandarin." And he did one page. I practised very hard for a few days (laughs). He used one phrase: that we were honest people, that we were an honest party, and the others were not trustworthy - that they were gua yang tou mai gou rou [挂羊头�狗肉, to palm off something inferior to what it purported to be] - so I practised that speech.
Q: You knew what that meant?
Yes, of course. I knew what I was saying, I was worried I could not pronounce it properly. The crowd knew that I was learning, so they cheered me - it went well. Then I picked up Mandarin. The (party) branches grew very rapidly. As the secretary-general of the party, I had to meet many Chinese-educated, young workers. Many of them were left-wingers who spoke either dialect or Mandarin. So I decided to concentrate on Mandarin because there are so many dialects. Every day at lunchtime in my office at Malacca Street, my branch activist, who I think was a pro-communist left-winger, would come to teach me for about one hour. As I progressed, he brought me a little book which taught me the basic words and phrases that the communists used, Marxist philosophy. It was called Ren Sheng Guan [《人生观》, Outlook on Life]. I don't know whether it is still available, it was my first primer on communist politics.
By 1955/59, I could make speeches in Mandarin without difficulty, but of course I was always looking for new words and phrases, because my English vocabulary was much bigger than my Chinese.
"Gin Nah Mai Chio, Wah Bei Oh"
Then came another shock. In 1961, we had to fight the by-election in Hong Lim and that was a Hokkien-speaking area, China Street. Ong Eng Guan, Singapore's first and last mayor, was our party's treasurer and a Minister for National Development. He clashed with us, he wanted to be the boss, so he started denouncing us. He then resigned (his seat in Hong Lim) and fought the by-election. We knew that we needed a Hokkien speaker. The other Hokkien speaker we had was Lim Chin Siong, but Lim Chin Siong was not with us anymore. We did not trust him. My colleagues, especially Dr Goh (Keng Swee), said, "You learn Hokkien." (laughs) I just said, "Okay, I'll learn Hokkien." I had Mandarin, it was a great help. I learnt to change the pronunciation into Hokkien, except that many (Hokkien) words have no characters. It was a tremendous effort. At the first meeting, the children laughed at me. I said, "Gin nah mai chio, wah bei oh," [in Hokkien, it means "kids don't laugh, I want to learn"] and that I am learning and I have something serious to tell you.
The election went on for about three months, we dragged it out because I needed time to learn my Hokkien and to get my ideas across. By the end of the three months, I could make a simple speech in Hokkien because every day when I spoke, this Radio Singapore reporter - I think he was a reporter but later he became an editor - Sia Cheng Tit who was a great enthusiast, would listen to me while I spoke in English. He knew that I had wanted to say in Hokkien and was looking for the Mandarin and Hokkien words. He noted them down and would turn up the next day at lunch with the words and phrases all with the romanised pronunciation and with the tones (Hokkien has seven tones). He was educated in wen yan [文言, classical Chinese], so he is very fond of beautiful, eight-character aphorism. I learnt them by heart (laughs).
That was life and death. If I did not master that, I could not have won the referendum in 1962; I could not have gone throughout Singapore in 1963 to fang wen [访问, visit the people]; I could not have won the elections. So, every National Day rally I would speak in Hokkien because that was the language that got the biggest audience. To do a National Day Rally speech in Hokkien without a script, to express my political ideas for about 40 minutes, I had to master several new words and phrases. To make sure that I mastered them, I would make similar speeches at several community centres before that. Mr Sia would listen to me, correct me and get it exactly right, so that by the time I got on television, I would be almost word perfect. Because I switched to Hokkien, Mandarin became secondary. But we were teaching students in schools Mandarin, so they saw the Prime Minister speaking Hokkien and said, "Nothing wrong, we carry on in Hokkien." So, they were not mastering Mandarin. The Education Ministry brought this problem up to me. I decided to stop (using) Hokkien.
My last speech in Hokkien was made in 1979 and from then on, I spoke Mandarin. (I was telling the people) not to speak dialects at all but learn Mandarin. You cannot learn English and Mandarin and speak dialects at home at the same time - it's not possible. I know it's not possible because it takes up more brain space, more "megabytes" in the brain. Every word in Hokkien is pronounced differently from Mandarin, the sound is different. "Hai zi" [å©å�, children] becomes "gin nah"; "nü zi" [女å�, woman] becomes "cha bo" - it's complicated. I switched back to Mandarin.
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Q: Were you worried about the political cost of giving up Hokkien as many people were then still speaking dialects?
I had a responsibility not to mislead the young. As long as I was still speaking Hokkien at the National Day Rally, I was in fact saying it's okay to do so. If so, they [the people] would never give up Hokkien; they would never move to Mandarin. So the Speak Mandarin Campaign would fail and the learning of Mandarin in schools would never be successful. So, never mind the price, yi shen zuo ze [以身作则, setting a good example], it had to be done. Everyone has a limit; you have to decide what do you want to do within your limited capacity and how do you maximise it for your life?
Q: You have not seen any example of people who speak good dialects, English and Mandarin?
Very few, Seng Han Thong is one but he is an interpreter. He has a specially trained capability and an in-born skill. For the average person, to master two languages is already a problem. Let me put it simply this way and I am speaking from my own experience, watching my children, my friends and generally testing people who are bilingual and trilingual. If I only learn English and, say, I reach 100%, when I learn Malay, Mandarin and Hokkien, I cannot score 100% in each. The more I learn for the next language, the lower my score in my first language. I say to Singaporeans: You decide, if you want good Chinese, you must be prepared to let your English go down to 90, 80 odd percent. Then, you can reach 50, 60 or 70% in Chinese. Or, you can go to Chinese schools and do English as a second language, then your Chinese can go up to 80%, and your English will go down to 50 or 60%. Very few can do both at the same level; 100% for each, I'd say that's possible only for a few who are specially gifted. I have spoken to many interpreters on what they do to keep their two languages up, particularly those who interpret for me in China.
(Once), after a trip in Beijing, we went on a plane to different provinces. I asked them [the interpreters] how had they kept up with their English. They said they read, listened to tapes, and if they didn't interpret and didn't read, then they were unable to keep it up. So, to do that, you have to push many things out of your mind. I have learnt six languages: English, Malay, Latin (to pass my examinations in school so that I could study law), then I learnt Chinese, Japanese and Hokkien. If you can take the example of a computer: your hard disk is only one gigabyte, what you put in pushes out something else. As you grow older, your gigabyte reduces, because every year, after the age of 20, you lose 1 million neurons. So you've got to delete.
After I retired from Prime Ministership, I went to Japan. Whilst talking to the Japanese through an interpreter, I could understand snatches of what they said because at the end of the Japanese occupation in September 1945, I was able to be an interpreter for business purposes. During a trip to Japan, I decided to re-learn Japanese. The Ambassador bought me some books, I brought them home and started reading. After a while, I said, "No, I am a stupid man, I meet a Japanese once in a month or once in two months and he brings an interpreter, when I bring it [Japanese] back into my hard disk, I am pushing out something else." So I stopped.
We have to make our minds up, parents must understand this: we must make a living in Singapore, we have decided and, I think rightly, that English is our working language. Otherwise, Singapore would divide, clash, collide, collapse. Non-Chinese would not be able to survive. So, how do we keep Chinese alive? And it is very important that we keep Chinese, not just for economic reasons, but for reasons of identity, sense of self, and pride in our own culture and civilisation.
Q: The motivation behind your effort in learning Mandarin appears to have been primarily political. With a changing environment, particularly as more of the voters are now conversant in English, why have you persevered in the effort to learn Mandarin? What moves you on?
Because I have not forgotten my sense of loss. Whilst I was in England (after Liberation), I felt a deep sense of loss that I did not know Chinese. There was a club called the China Institute in Gordon Square financed by the Boxer Indemnity Fund which the British had extracted from the Chinese government. That club was open to all Chinese from anywhere in the world. As students, we were very poor. They gave me what they'd call high tea - meaning a semi-dinner - sandwiches, tea, and a few cakes. So, I could skip dinner and save money. I used to meet Chinese from all over the world. After a while, I could tell the difference between a Singapore or Malayan Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, China Chinese, Carribean Chinese, Mauritian Chinese - most were from the British empire. Those who were most de-culturalised were from the West Indies, because they were farthest away from China. They couldn't speak dialect, their connection with China had been lost.
When I used to go to hotels to register, they would say, "Oh, Chinese," so I thought it was a deep loss that I could not speak or understand Chinese.
That's why I sent my children to Chinese schools. I think from the age of three, my wife had a Chinese teacher to teach them at home. Then at the age of five, they were sent to Nanyang You Zhi Yuan [å�—洋幼稚å›] (now it's called You Er Yuan [幼儿å›]) [Nanyang Kindergarten], and then Nanyang Xiao Xue [å�—æ´‹å°�å¦, Nanyang Primary School]. For the eldest, he had Chinese education right up to gao zhong er [高ä¸äºŒ, second year of pre-university], for a total of 12 years. The other two had 10 years of Chinese education. At home I used to speak to them in Mandarin to practise my Mandarin and they learnt English from their mother and from books. But in the end, English became their master language, because they went on to English language universities and they use English every day (instead of) Mandarin. But they already have it [Chinese] deeply implanted in their brains so that it can be easily revived. In their case, it was like a sapling, with deep roots, but in my case, it was like an instant tree chopped off from the ground; not so stable, the roots not so deep.
If today I am unable to read the Chinese characters on the wall or the newspapers. I'd feel I am inadequate. I read three times faster in English than I read in Chinese. Sometimes the (Chinese) word is so small, I am not sure what the word is. In English, I can scan the whole sentence; in Chinese, if I miss one or two characters, I cannot be sure of the meaning. I will feel a sense of loss and having spent all this effort, I am determined not to lose it. It is as simple as that.
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Q: In learning Mandarin, what were some difficulties that you encountered and how did you overcome them?
Pronunciation was (learnt) very early on, once I captured the pronunciation and I knew the zhu yin fu hao [注音符�], I didn't worry about the pronunciation any more. I knew how not to follow my earlier teachers' or tutors' pronunciation because I knew their Mandarin was with dialect accents. I'll tell you one strange situation. When I was in China for the first time in 1976, they had a very good interpreter, she was very competent. Then we went to Guangzhou, (where) the Vice Chairman of the revolutionary committee was a Hainan ren [海�人, man who hailed from Hainan province in China]. She, the interpreter, couldn't understand his Mandarin, so I translated his Mandarin to her because I understood his Hainan qiang diao [腔调, accent]. The problem for China and the problem for us, is the wide variety of different dialects and accents; (there is a need) to move towards one norm, one standard. Singapore is small and I think we can succeed. China is enormous; I think even in two to three generations, in spite of satellite TV, Internet and so on, they will still be speaking with different accents. The population is huge, each province and town has a different slang and tone - Shanghai is different from Nanjing, Nanjing is different from Beijing and so on.
Language requires that we understand each other. Grammar must always be correct. As in English, you can speak with different accents, but if the grammar is correct, it can be understood. To do all that in Singapore, we have to stick to English and Mandarin. Don't go into dialects, it will ruin the bilingual policy we have. Supposing we had not pushed out dialects, and I had continued speaking Hokkien, today we would be worse off.
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Wow, talk as if expert.
When actually everything above is nothing but complete rubbish.
Lee Kuan Yew, you think you come and talk some cock, I will be fooled?
You wait long lah.
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All the languages all the corruption all the singlish, all the bastardisation of languages is all due to this filth Lee Kuan Yew.